


to know

by skiesaflame



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 11:05:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19462678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiesaflame/pseuds/skiesaflame
Summary: Nobunaga, Nobukatsu, Okita, Hijikata, Chacha and contact between them.





	to know

_sister_

Nobunaga aims at the target several feet away with an unusually stern focus, evens out the rifle she holds, readjusts her grip and resumes following her line of sight, and then finally pulls the trigger. The bullet strikes true. 

The impact of the shot cracks through the rounded board Nobukatsu had painstakingly covered in green felt and worked several other circular layers onto to create a target worthy of his sister’s practice shots. He can’t fully suppress the whimper he lets out at the sound of splintering wood, splitting apart so carelessly, and he chokes it into a cough and smothers it in his sleeve. 

Due to being immersed in thoughts of how the target would fair, he belatedly realises the success of his sister’s first shot. Her spirited whoop in celebration has died down by the time he congratulates her, his praise sounding weak to his own ears. Even when it comes to complementing and speaking highly of Nobunaga, his words are second rate in comparison to Nobunaga’s own prideful boasting. 

“Your turn,” Nobunaga says cheerily, shoving her rifle into Nobukatsu’s hands. 

He fumbles. The weight feels off and uncomfortable. The sight of the rifle is not foreign, and he has become frighteningly familiar with it in the nightmares he wakes up from more mornings than he’d like to admit, his shirt soaked in cold sweat, but in his dreams he is staring down the gun’s barrel, not holding it himself. If Nobunaga notices the way his fingers tremble, she doesn’t outrightly comment on it. 

Nobukatsu starts, “B-but I made this target for you and I wouldn’t even-”

“Nope,” Nobunaga cuts in, “I’m not listening to any of your whining. Stop looking so shit scared and shoot already. Targets are meant for ruining, but if this one is a little arts and crafts projects of yours, the least you can do is shoot it up yourself.” 

Nobukatsu sighs. Nobunaga is dismissive and lacks tact and there is no changing her. He doesn’t resent her for it. No, if anything he resents the confidence that comes so naturally to her. He swallows back the bitterness. Envy laced with an unhealthy amount of admiration is a hopelessly ugly combination. 

He readies himself into a poor imitation of his sister’s stance and shoots after too long a period of aiming. Nobunaga has been hovering next to him the entire time. It’s far more daunting than it would’ve been if he were alone. The shot misses completely. Nobunaga’s laughter roars. Beneath his shame, he feels indignant. 

“Again,” Nobunaga commands, voice slightly lax with amusement.

Nobukatsu readies himself again. He shoots several more times. He misses. Nobunaga must be getting bored by now, he thinks, almost hopefully. He can’t take much more of this humiliation. His next shot hits the corner of the target. 

“Better! Still terrible, but better.” Nobunaga grins and slaps him on the back, hard enough that he stumbles and nearly drops the rifle. It’s not much by most standards, but he’ll eagerly take his sister’s rare praise whenever he can.

_enemy_

Nobunaga knows the feeling after emerging from a battle victoriously well, but even so, the adrenaline pumping through her veins is potent enough that it could just as well be the first time. She sees Okita - battered and tired, but smiling - a few feet in front of her and makes quick work of striding to close the distance between them. Okita’s face is surprised as Nobunaga pulls her into a sloppy kiss. Okita leans into her at first, forgetting her surroundings, but quickly breaks away after remembering. She gives Nobunaga a glare that clearly says _not now_ before rushing off to speak to Ritsuka. The effect of the glare is demeaned by how brightly Okita’s cheeks burn. 

Nobunaga huffs, walking off. She’s fully intent on sulking petulantly in a corner of the forest until they rayshift back to Chaldea when she realises that it’s already occupied. 

Hijikata stares down at her with his hard eyes - normally blazing with madness, though now significantly colder when regarding her - and it’s hard for even Nobunaga to not feel something when his imposing figure is looming over her like that. His voice rumbles, gruff from shouting during combat, “Oda.” 

Nobunaga refuses to step back, disregarding the urging of her instincts. “Hiji! Fancy seeing you here.”

Hijikata’s scowl deepens. “I can’t say that it's good to see you. Though I suppose at least you’re not bothering Okita if you’re here. You can stay.”

Nobunaga scoffs. “I don’t need your permission. And I’m not bothering Okita, since she’s hardly complaining when we’re together.”

“I didn’t get that impression when she ran away from you just now. I don’t blame her. You’re as much an irritating little brat as you are a powerful military force. She doesn’t need you around.” 

Now she’s starting to anger, possibly because she’s still a bit sore over the fact that Okita left her in the first place. “That’s not what she said last night, or the night before that, and I’m pretty sure that’s not what she’ll be saying tonight when I have my fingers-”

Hijikata lifts her off her feet with one hand. His teeth are bared and there’s a low growl escaping from his throat through his gritted teeth. Their faces are level and this might be the first time Nobunaga can look him in the eye without having to strain her neck doing so. Hijikata looks moments away from tossing her into a tree, but before he can, Nobunaga smiles wildly, and then knees him in the crotch. 

Hijikata barely flinches, but he does drop her. The descent is rough and Nobunaga twists her ankle on impact. To her credit, she does not stumble. Hijikata looks at her as if she’d pissed on his coat. He stares at her long and hard, but eventually stalks away into the trees.

Nobunaga walks back to the clearing where she’d left Okita with a slight limp. Okita spots her from where she stands, left alone as Ritsuka interacts with the other servants. Okita meets her halfway.

“You’re limping. I thought you weren’t injured,” Okita says softly. 

Nobunaga slings an arm over Okita’s shoulder. “Oh, I wasn’t. I ran into your vice-commander. I think he’s warming up to me! He didn’t even stab me this time when I talked about you.”

Okita shakes her head. Her expression is somewhere between disapproving and fond.

_brother_

Hijikata watches Okita closely. She looks pained. Today’s training is no more intense than usual, and Hijikata sees no serious injuries, only the usual scrapes and bruises. 

“Okita. Enough, sit down. I won’t waste another hour deflecting your halfhearted strikes.”

It takes Okita too long to respond. Not only are her movements sluggish, but she looks to be processing words at a slower pace too. She sits down on the floor without saying a word. Hijikata continues to observe her, finally sitting down next to her after seeing that she has no intention of voicing her worries without prodding. 

“Something’s wrong with you. What is it?” A man of gentility, Hijikata is not.

Okita startles. “It’s nothing. I’m sorry that I’ve been lagging behind in training today, I’ve been a little physically run-down after all the missions I’ve gone along on.”

Hijikata stares at her flatly. “Don’t lie. I’ve seen you reach your physical limit and suffer burnout. This is not that. You’re distracted.”

Okita still hasn’t looked him in the eye. “I’m just… tired. I sleep soundly despite not needing it, but it never feels like I rest.”

Hijikata frowns. “Is it the Demon Archer? I can respect that she has stamina in abundance, but if she’s keeping you from rest, I can and will gut her for you.”

“No! No. I mean, Nobu doesn’t always help because she’s a handful and sometimes it feels like she’s as much a chore as she is someone I enjoy spending time with because half the time I’m running after her doing damage control, but she isn’t the problem.” 

Hijikata raises an eyebrow. “Perhaps she should be.”

Okita rubs at her temples. “At this point, I’m used to managing high maintenance people. I like Nobu and in her own way, she likes me. That’s enough for me.” 

“Okay.”

Relief washes over her. “Okay? Really?” 

Hijikata leans his back on his hands. “You’re an adult, Okita. You’ll make your own decisions, and I can’t stop you from ultimately following through with them. What matters most is that you continue on while maintaining the laws we are sworn to. Who am I to trust here, if not you? Who am I to believe in, if not the Shinsengumi.” 

“I want to be someone you can trust. I want to be able to trust in myself and my ability… But, I doubt. I feel faint and hack out coughs that leave the taste of blood in my mouth, and I fear. I fear that I am not strong enough to do what I must. I fear that I never will be. I fear that, yet again, I won’t be able to fulfill my duty to the very end. I swear to myself that I will in the evenings before I sleep, that I will fight until I collapse on the battlefield and fade away, but I don’t know if I will,” Okita confides, too exhausted to worry about Hijikata’s reaction. 

“I see,” Hijikata says. In truth, he doesn’t really. Since summoned, he hasn’t experienced doubt or fear and has held onto his beliefs steadfastly, but Okita looks so shaken that he tries to, however briefly. “Keep fighting. Your doubt and fear will do no one any good, especially not yourself. If you fade, do so fighting. Find comfort in the knowledge that the Shinsengumi will carry on even in your passing, because I will never truly allow it to day.”

Okita smiles at him weakly. Hijikata lays a heavy hand on her head, ruffling her hair messily. He stands. “We’re done for today,” he says, already halfway through the door when he calls back to Okita. “Come on. I hear the cafeteria stocked up on takuan.”

_lover_

The faint smell of gunpowder clings to Nobunaga. The layers of her uniform are peeled off, but the scent remains. In the moment, she doesn’t really give it any thought, no time to spare between wandering hands and breathy noises they coaxed out. Later, she lies awake with her ear pressed against Nobunaga’s chest and tries to focus on the rise and fall of her chest instead of the reverberating of her snoring. The gunpowder isn’t as notable, drowned out by sweat, but it lingers at the back of her mind. 

What does her being able to discern gunpowder so easily say about her, she wonders. Nothing good, surely. _We’ll always know death intimately, in all forms but peacefully passing away in old age._

Nobunaga stirs in her sleep, kicking Okita’s legs out of the comfortable position they were sprawled in. Okita imagines sometimes that Nobunaga dreams of smoke and blood and somewhere beneath it all, regret that she will never admit to in life. Sometimes, she imagines that Nobunaga can understand the depth of Okita’s own remorse, and soon after finds herself fearing that she searches for benignity in Nobunaga that has never existed, at least not in the sense that Okita wishes it to be. Sometimes, she imagines that Nobunaga is a better person than what she is in reality. Sometimes, Okita imagines that she herself could be a better person than what her life choices dictated her to be - someone who may judge Nobunaga without being hypocritical - but never does she expect it to be true. Still, she dreams pleasantly with her eyes held open. (Never are her dreams while unconscious not nightmares.)

Nobunaga is not unkind to her. She’s likely caring in her own way, but so, so different to Okita that it’s at times exhausting to read into. Nobunaga is as volatile as crashing tides whereas Okita yearns to offer the reliability of solid earth. Okita does not do as well in response to change as she would like to. She’s often knocked off her feet when the playing field shifts. Nobunaga is always moving, shifting. There’s a listlessness to her that cannot be stripped away. Okita believes that Nobunaga revels in surprising people, and despite her unsure footing, Okita ends up accepting the challenge. 

Nobunaga is chaotic, but her chaos is not without recurring patterns. Okita finds comfort in picking them apart. In Nobunaga, she finds distraction. She also finds control in being able to adapt. It’s a dance of constant movement, and Okita is nothing if not fast footed. She learns when to retreat and when to push back and when to stop moving altogether. Nobunaga has been and continues to be a learning curve that slopes on and on and has crossed into realms of comfort at some point or another. 

Before Okita’s thoughts can spiral further, Nobunaga’s breath begins to even and her snoring tapers down to a light whistle of exhaled air as she presumably starts to wake. Okita sits up in order to give her space to stretch. 

Nobunaga loosens the muscles in her arms and yawns. “Morning already?”

Okita glances at the window. Sunlight trickles through the slight slits of blinds. “It seems so.”

Nobunaga rubs the sleep from her eyes, and then narrows them when they look to Okita. “You didn’t sleep.” 

Okita looks down. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you look like shit,” Nobunaga states plainly. 

Okita closes her tired eyes and sighs before opening them. She doesn’t respond, at least not immediately, and Nobunaga seems to be getting impatient. 

“Hey, would you say that killing someone by shooting them is different to stabbing them?” Okita ask. It sounds too morbid for her the moment she says it. She doesn’t want to talk about this, but she wants to talk about why she didn’t sleep much less. 

“Okay, ignoring the fact that that was a weird as hell way to change the subject,” Nobunaga leans her chin into a hand she props her arm up on the mattress, “I’d say it depends. Yes and no. Yes, because it’s more indirect and can be a lot harder to tell if your shot was lethal or not. When you stab someone, you can usually tell where you’ll be stabbing if it’s planned, especially for someone like you. If a bullet misses, you can’t really tell through anything but estimation. Death can take longer. No, because if they die, they die and I’m the one who killed them, whether it’s with a knife to the heart or a bullet to the head.”

“Oh.” Okita feels off kilter. “That makes sense.” 

“You’ve never shot someone?” Nobunaga asks. 

Okita says, “I have, but not intentionally. Hijikata tried to teach me once. I hit him in the shoulder. He only ended the lesson when I nearly shot myself in the foot, though. He told me to stick to stabbing and slashing at things. I’m quite alright with that.” 

“Ha!” Nobu is throwing her head back with an obnoxious snort of laughter and Okita is almost smiling. “I should’ve figured. It’s hard to say who was worse. The student or the teacher.”

“Well, I don’t think the loss of blood did much for Hijikata’s teaching skills, but I was a rather horrible student overall.” 

“I could teach you, y’know. I’d be a great teacher.” Nobunaga punctuates the offer with a wink. 

Okita’s cheeks colour with a heated blush. “I-I think I’d be better off with Hijikata. You’d be beyond distracting.” 

Nobunaga grins as she straddles Okita’s hips. “Good.”

_mother_

Chacha watches Nobunaga skid through the hallways out of the corner of her eye. Nobukatsu runs after her, his running far less fluid and his breathing laboured. Just as Chacha is beginning to worry that he’s going to collapse, he crashes into Nobunaga with his full weight. 

Chacha thinks about her sons, watching Nobunaga and Nobukatsu bicker on floor. Would they have interacted similarly, had one lived long enough to grow and speak to his brother as a fellow man? Nobunaga and Nobukatsu must have been more than a handful to manage, but they are far from a mother’s worst nightmare. No, she has already lived through that when her son died a few meagre years after his birth. So, she looks at Nobunaga and Nobukatsu and yearns and mourns for her son and the companionship he had lost. (She doesn’t dare think too hard on her own loss, because it is ill-suited to the character of the child that most here believe er to be.) 

She resents her body with a childish sort of repulsion that leads her into a cycle where she cannot escape the youth imposed upon her. If most servants are summoned in their prime, and this form is considered to be hers, it implies that she has ultimately failed life. Had she truly not been an adequate enough mother or partner? Had she truly not been enough of a woman to be remembered as such? Is she truly so horrible that the years she had weathered while amongst the living needed to be erased from her face and body? The truth of it is that her summoning is an insult, and there is little balm to soothe the sting of it when most everyone doesn’t take note. 

Ahead, Nobunaga is pushing Nobukatsu off of her and standing, brushing off her pants. Nobukatsu takes longer, struggling to his feet and wobbling as he gets up. He still looks short of breath when she approaches. 

“You two alright?” Chacha asks, concerned despite how often they end up in these messes. 

“A little bump like that isn’t enough to do any damage to me,” Nobunaga is quick to state.

Nobukatsu’s voice is not as loud as Nobunaga’s, but isn’t quiet either. Chacha estimates that it’s a pitch away from the tone he uses when he’s whining. “Fine, mostly.”

Chacha grips the elbow Nobukatsu had landed on. He flinches back in pain. Chacha looks between, unimpressed. 

“Alright then,” Chacha says, grabbing onto the Oda siblings’ sleeves, “We’re going to the med bay.”

It’s a short walk that is made painstakingly long by Nobunaga’s complaints and Nobukatsu’s sulking. There is noise coming from the open doors and Chacha hopes that they haven’t come to the room while Chaldea’s self-proclaimed official nurse is hanging around. 

Upon entering, Chacha breathes a sigh of relief when she doesn’t see Nightingale, but the room is already occupied. Okita is frantically rifling through gauze and bandages, and when Chacha turns her head to the side, she sees why.

Hijikata coat is hung over the chair, the lower half of his waistcoat is several shades darker and his white shirt is stained red. There’s a gaping stab wound to his right side. The wound hasn’t stopped bleeding, but Hijikata doesn’t seem particularly phased. Okita, on the other hand, looks like she’s about to cough up bile at the sight of it. Soon, she has Hijikata stripping off his ruined shirt and overcoat. She seems lost when she’s actually observing the wound. 

Nobunaga decides that this is the perfect time to interfere. “Oi! Who did you piss off now?” 

Okita jumps, pressing too hard into the raw flesh that she was trying to treat. Hijikata grunts. “Okita, apparently. However, she keeps on apologising, so I don’t believe that it was a predetermined decision to stab me.”

“Of course it wasn’t! I would never just stab you on purpose like that!” Okita cries. 

Nobunaga cackles while Chacha and Nobukatsu put distance between themselves and Hijikata by staying behind her. “Well damn, Okita. I didn’t think you were the type.” 

Hijikata’s eyes flit back to Nobunaga. “Okita, if you end up stabbing someone you frequently spend time with again, make sure it’s her.”

“I’m not stabbing anyone here,” Okita says firmly. She’s going about trying to bandage Hijikata’s side. The clumsily overlap and look too skew in places, but the bandaging holds when Hijikata moves. 

“A shame,” Nobunaga says. “It’s pretty hot.” Okita doesn’t bother encouraging her with a reply.

Hijikata hangs his jacket over his shoulders in a fluid movement and picks up his ruined clothes from the floor, leaving without any parting words. He never acknowledges Chacha or Nobukatsu’s presence, or so much as looks their way. It’s probably for the best. 

Okita sighs. “I should go after him, now that he’s in a foul mood. But, before that, why are you here? Are you injured badly?” Her eyes worry over Nobunaga’s body before glancing over Nobukatsu and Chacha. 

“The idiots were crashing around and bruised themselves up a little,” Chacha gestures from Nobunaga to Nobukatsu with a wide arc drawn with her hand through the air, “Nothing that Chacha doesn’t know how to handle.” 

Okita nods. “I’ll see you later.” The words are mostly directed towards Nobunaga.

“Have fun babysitting your commander!” Nobunaga calls after her. 

Chacha clears her throat, gathering what fragments she can of an authoritative visage with the way she exists now. “Now, roll up your sleeves and pants so that I can see the bruised areas.” 

The bruise on Nobukatsu’s arm is already fading, the skin tinged a slight blue and green. Nobunaga’s are worse. Her knees are a blackish blue and there are scrape marks running through the bruised skin. Chacha is reminded of cleaning scraped knees and doting on a curious little boy and berating him when it occurred more regularly. A phantom pain aches in her chest. It hurts to think about, because here her sons are as good as lost and all she has left are the memories she clutches to her heart when the madness roaring in her head refuses to die down.

Nobukatsu’s body is starting to flicker. He must not have much time left today. He isn’t truly a heroic spirit, too weak and forgotten to qualify as one. It had been no small miracle when Ritsuka had pulled him from the summoning circle, probably only possible because she had met him before herself. Chacha sometimes thinks that it’s only really her and Nobunaga really remembering, though Nobunaga is confident enough to spit on cosmic technicalities. The result is a spirit that’s rarely seen by anyone that hasn’t spoken to him somewhere before and is more ghost than anything. 

Nobukatsu can’t sustain his form for too long. His grip is already slipping. Nobunaga pretends not to notice and resumes casual, animated conversation. At some point, she calls Chacha over to be the tiebreaker for one of their petty disputes. Chacha goes along with it. They are not the family she dreams of reuniting with, but they are the family she has. 

_friend_

Okita flops into a cafeteria chair unceremoniously and barely resists the urge to drop her head onto the table. The day has been long and cold. Someone broke some of the observation glass holding out the arctic conditions, and the biting winds have been howling through Chaldea since. She’d spent the entire afternoon making sure Nobunaga didn’t make good on her promise to set numerous fires around Chaldea to try and heat up the base. 

She hears someone pull a chair out across from her and settle into it. A wave of steam wafts into her arms and she opens her eyes from their lidded state to find the source of the warm vapour. A cup of tea sits across from her. She reaches to drink from it on instinct.

There’s a cautionary “Wait! It’s hot!”, but it’s too late and she’s already burnt her tongue. Okita winces at the scalding. She’s had worse, though and the warm liquid does her throat good. 

It only occurs to her after her second sip to thank the person who is kind enough to go out of their way to do something nice for her. “Oh,” Okita looks straight ahead and her eyes widen slightly when she sees Chacha sitting across from her, “I’m sorry, that was rude. Thank you for the tea.” Okita bows her head. 

Chacha pats the hand Okita has lying next to the tea. “Don’t worry about it. I saw you watching over my aunt all day in the cold and thought you could use it. Some words of appreciation can never hurt though.” 

Okita does her best to smile brightly at her. “This is very kind of you. I really do appreciate it, and your effort.” 

There’s a distant explosion, followed by Nobunaga’s telltale laughter. Okita groans. 

_begrudging ally_

Chacha knows that she is mad, feels it in the very bones that have been summoned into place. Madness Enhancement is a peculiar thing. It warps one’s mind and thoughts until everything feels corrupt and ugly and distanced from what it once was. 

She is meant to be stronger for it, but she does not feel so. Her mind is weak and she’s out of sync with her body. She hits hard, but the dissonance between her thought process and her movement catches up to her. 

The enemy is a weak one, but she isn’t focusing and before she can fully register it, an arrow is seconds away from piercing her eye. Seconds before it hits, someone knocks her to the floor on her stomach. A gunshot rings out. Recovering from the daze of the sudden action, Chacha looks up from where she lies. A sound of surprise starts to rise in her throat, but she bites it down. 

Hijikata scowls at her from above, his height making him seem almost untouchable in the harsh light of battle. He’s completely in his element. It’s sad in its own way. 

“Don’t think that this means that you can approach me, brat.” He speaks roughly. 

“I wouldn’t want to in the first place,” she says.

Chacha stands. Hijikata returns to the fray. No matter how mad she is, it’s a small comfort that she will always keep her hands cleaner than his.


End file.
